It will be a total disaster. It’s not simply a matter of moving populations around.
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I agree with you that it will be disruptive, but it has ever been so. Land elevates and subsides and cities move and die. We can snorkel around old ruins in one area, and visit seaport ruins that are far from the coast. The difference now is that we may be part of the cause as well, and it may move faster than we have seen in the past. We certainly have not been good caretakers of the planet, and that underlying selfishness that puts immediate personal gain ahead of long term benefit started with Adam (either archetypically or literally, take your pick) and will continue. Locally, Houston is only a few feet about sea level also, so those oil companies will have to pick up and move too in the next hundred years if they still exist, if that serves your sense of justice any.
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@beaglelady, yes, it will be awful. Let me corroborate your thoughts with a quote from a little known visionary:
“… [W]henever food and people have to move, there will be war and havoc that affects the entire world.”
Keorkee Potoky, Czech Psychic, March 27, 2018
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It’s also strange (or not) how climate change is only a political topic in the US. Almost everywhere else it is accepted by liberals and conservatives. The fact that conservatives have politicized the science is why scientists have to address the politics in the US.
I think it has much more to do with profits at Exxon than tax money being used for military spending. According to a source I found, the US is spending $20 billion on all climate related programs and are spending $588 billion on defense. If you shook the couches at the Pentagon you could probably find enough money to double our spending on actual climate research.
https://grist.org/briefly/were-spending-way-more-on-weapons-than-on-dealing-with-climate-change/
I don’t deal with politics, so sorry if i’m wrong. But i think there’s a couple climate change deniers around here in Belgium. But luckily our premier is willing to help. He’s been working on green power and electric cars!
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Are we really saying different things? The Koch Brothers, by gosh, are not going to let anyone slow down their harvesting of every last pound of fossil fuel they own in that ground. And for every year they can delay any Government investment in alternate energy (that would be competition), or in any kind of research that might diminish the sales price of their precious sulphur-laden coal… well that’s just money being taken from them to be used to further take money from them. So to even get four more years of a friendly White House occupant is worth billions to them.
You like to see a distinction between taxes and the fossil fuel industry … they do not. They will encourage climate change research just as soon as they can see the bottom of the barrel for their precious fossil fuel fields…
In the interest of accuracy, the Koch brothers actually own very little oil in the ground. Their primary business is diversified, but their energy related companies primarily distribute and refine others oil that they make into the products you buy. So, they are sort of your agents in satisfying your appetite for gasoline, plastics and such.
Out of ignorance of the details, I refer to fossil fuels… I certainly never said anything about oil.
You specify oil. Is that because the Koch brothers are certainly rich in sulfurated coal? Out of curiosity, I tried to find out how much coal the Koch Brothers have, and am now totally unnerved! Could it be worse than even I could have imagined? The exhibit below lists 3 coal companies (I have no idea how much Koch brothers owns of any of them … maybe none of them.) But is this representative?
Are the Koch Brothers in the same racket? They are in a hurry to dig up My Coal while they still can? Your coal too, @jpm
Here is a barely helpful article …
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-koch-coal-idUSL2N14W1JJ20160112
This article has a few more details:
http://polluterwatch.org/koch-industries
Now this article had some real meat on its bones!
"The volume of Koch Industries’ toxic output is staggering. According to the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute, only three companies rank among the top 30 polluters of America’s air, water and climate: ExxonMobil, American Electric Power and Koch Industries.
[^ Though I cannot be sure how much of this is from fossil fuels…]
“Thanks in part to its 2005 purchase of paper-mill giant Georgia-Pacific, Koch Industries dumps more pollutants into the nation’s waterways than General Electric and International Paper combined.”
[This just speaks to water pollution]
“The company ranks 13th in the nation for toxic air pollution. Koch’s climate pollution, meanwhile, outpaces oil giants including Valero, Chevron and Shell. Across its businesses, Koch generates 24 million metric tons of greenhouse gases a year.”
[Again, I don’t know how much of this is from their fossil fuels… but if they sell the coal, then obviously someone else is getting blamed for the coal being burned…]
If someone has any specifics about the Coal side of the Koch Brothers, I’d love to chat with them in the PM system.
No doubt, as paper production is terribly polluting. But I saw nothing you quoted about oil, or really coal holdings, though I am sure there are some. After all, I’m sure I own some though my retirement fund. The Kochs are a favorite whipping boy these days.
Don’t you agree that the cost of climate change will be unimaginably great? Financial costs of course. But also social costs, stability costs, security costs, mental health costs, etc. I know that the department of defense is worried. Some may not care about losing great museums, libraries, landmarks, research facilities, universities, hospitals, seminaries and infrastructure until they see how it affects their finances.
When I use the term fossil fuel in connection with the Koch brothers, it is virtually always about their involvement with Coal. So, it goes without saying, that Oil is not my topic. But maybe I’m wrong… and that I should be looking at their connection to oil as well.
I found it devilishly difficult to get solid information on the ranking in the Coal Inudstry occupied by the Koch Brothers. I’ll give it another try again in a week or two if nobody else comes up with anything in the meantime.
If the Right Wing is going to pay for anything … they want it to be weapons. Ironically, the Keynesian impact of huge military spending will have a few positive affects… but what a terrible waste of money on something that won’t help society as much as other spending.
I do agree. I think this is why it is entirely legitimate for scientists to confront the politics of the day. It’s like seeing an out of control train careening towards a crowd of people. It would be almost immoral not to do your best to get the people out of the way.
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In the US it is a bit more complicated. In the US there is a long history of anti-intellectualism that has pushed back against what they see as the educated elite. This can be seen in many areas, from the considerably higher percentage of creationists in the US to climate change denial. This part of American culture was even written about back in the 1960’s, so it isn’t something recent.
Another book relevant to your point:
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Back in 2001 or so, Mark Fischetti wrote an article for Scientific American called “Drowning New Orleans.” He said that New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen, due to human activity along the Mississippi, etc. The along came Katrina.
This thread appears to have veered off track. So, as a means to get it back on track to the topic at hand, I found a link on the Answers in Genesis website that reviews the PBS Bill Nye documentary:
Nice heads up!
Drowning New Orleans
[ Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in the October 2001 issue of Scientific American. ]
By Mark Fischetti on September 5, 2008
“In a harrowing prediction of what would become the future, this 2001 feature notes that a major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands”
[Why New Orleans is sinking]
“The Mississippi River built the delta plain that forms southeastern Louisiana over centuries by depositing vast quantities of sediment every year during spring floods. Although the drying sands and silts would compress under their own weight and sink some, the next flood would rebuild them. Since 1879, however, the Corps of Engineers, at Congress’s behest, has progressively lined the river with levees to prevent floods from damaging towns and industry. The river is now shackled from northern Louisiana to the gulf, cutting off the sediment supply. As a result, the plain just subsides below the encroaching ocean. As the wetlands vanish, so does New Orleans’s protection from the sea. A hurricane’s storm surge can reach heights of more than 20 feet, but every four miles of marsh can absorb enough water to knock it down by one foot.”
[What will happen if something isn’t done]
"If Congress and President George W. Bush hear a unified call for action, authorizing it would seem prudent. Restoring coastal Louisiana would protect the country’s seafood and shipping industries and its oil and natural-gas supply. It would also save America’s largest wetlands, a bold environmental stroke. And without action, the million people outside New Orleans would have to relocate. The other million inside the bowl would live at the bottom of a sinking crater, surrounded by ever higher walls, trapped in a terminally ill city dependent on nonstop pumping to keep it alive."
It appears AiG uses their usual approach of referring readers back to their articles rather than addressing the arguments forthrightly. They did point out that the film was produced by Nye, which explains why it ignored criticism of some of his activities. I had missed that on viewing, and assumed it was produced by PBS.
Looks like your link to PBS’s Point of View is no longer available. (PBS’s - no problem adding 's for possessive case here)
I read Nye’s “Undeniable” and came to the conclusion that for an intelligent man he hides it well. I looked at reviews on Goodreads and found I’m not alone in that opinion. Consequently I’m not particularly upset at missing this “must see” film.